Featured Essay

Beyond Anonymity: Paleographic Analyses of the Dunhuang Manuscripts

- by Jacob Dalton, Tom Davis, and Sam van Schaik

Working with manuscripts is certainly a laborious affair, but one that can have almost magical moments. After years of careful analysis, one may begin to feel an almost personal bond with the scribes of the distant past. The present article grew out of just such a strange and ill-defined series of experiences. Its goal, however, is to justify these intuitions in as much detail as possible, to shed light on these murky insights. For three years, from 2002 to 2005, Jacob Dalton and Sam van Schaik worked.